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PROLOG
This manual page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual. The Linux implementation of
this interface may differ (consult the corresponding Linux manual page for details of
Linux behavior), or the interface may not be implemented on Linux.
NAME
recvmsg — receive a message from a socket
SYNOPSIS
#include <sys/socket.h>
ssize_t recvmsg(int socket, struct msghdr *message, int flags);
DESCRIPTION
The recvmsg() function shall receive a message from a connection-mode or connectionless-
mode socket. It is normally used with connectionless-mode sockets because it permits the
application to retrieve the source address of received data.
The recvmsg() function takes the following arguments:
socket Specifies the socket file descriptor.
message Points to a msghdr structure, containing both the buffer to store the source
address and the buffers for the incoming message. The length and format of the
address depend on the address family of the socket. The msg_flags member is
ignored on input, but may contain meaningful values on output.
flags Specifies the type of message reception. Values of this argument are formed by
logically OR'ing zero or more of the following values:
MSG_OOB Requests out-of-band data. The significance and semantics of out-
of-band data are protocol-specific.
MSG_PEEK Peeks at the incoming message.
MSG_WAITALL On SOCK_STREAM sockets this requests that the function block until
the full amount of data can be returned. The function may return
the smaller amount of data if the socket is a message-based
socket, if a signal is caught, if the connection is terminated, if
MSG_PEEK was specified, or if an error is pending for the socket.
The recvmsg() function shall receive messages from unconnected or connected sockets and
shall return the length of the message.
The recvmsg() function shall return the total length of the message. For message-based
sockets, such as SOCK_DGRAM and SOCK_SEQPACKET, the entire message shall be read in a
single operation. If a message is too long to fit in the supplied buffers, and MSG_PEEK is
not set in the flags argument, the excess bytes shall be discarded, and MSG_TRUNC shall be
set in the msg_flags member of the msghdr structure. For stream-based sockets, such as
SOCK_STREAM, message boundaries shall be ignored. In this case, data shall be returned to
the user as soon as it becomes available, and no data shall be discarded.
If the MSG_WAITALL flag is not set, data shall be returned only up to the end of the first
message.
If no messages are available at the socket and O_NONBLOCK is not set on the socket's file
descriptor, recvmsg() shall block until a message arrives. If no messages are available at
the socket and O_NONBLOCK is set on the socket's file descriptor, the recvmsg() function
shall fail and set errno to [EAGAIN] or [EWOULDBLOCK].
In the msghdr structure, the msg_name member may be a null pointer if the source address
is not required. Otherwise, if the socket is unconnected, the msg_name member points to a
sockaddr structure in which the source address is to be stored, and the msg_namelen member
on input specifies the length of the supplied sockaddr structure and on output specifies
the length of the stored address. If the actual length of the address is greater than the
length of the supplied sockaddr structure, the stored address shall be truncated. If the
socket is connected, the msg_name and msg_namelen members shall be ignored. The msg_iov
and msg_iovlen fields are used to specify where the received data shall be stored. The
msg_iov member points to an array of iovec structures; the msg_iovlen member shall be set
to the dimension of this array. In each iovec structure, the iov_base field specifies a
storage area and the iov_len field gives its size in bytes. Each storage area indicated by
msg_iov is filled with received data in turn until all of the received data is stored or
all of the areas have been filled.
Upon successful completion, the msg_flags member of the message header shall be the
bitwise-inclusive OR of all of the following flags that indicate conditions detected for
the received message:
MSG_EOR End-of-record was received (if supported by the protocol).
MSG_OOB Out-of-band data was received.
MSG_TRUNC Normal data was truncated.
MSG_CTRUNC Control data was truncated.
RETURN VALUE
Upon successful completion, recvmsg() shall return the length of the message in bytes. If
no messages are available to be received and the peer has performed an orderly shutdown,
recvmsg() shall return 0. Otherwise, −1 shall be returned and errno set to indicate the
error.
ERRORS
The recvmsg() function shall fail if:
EAGAIN or EWOULDBLOCK
The socket's file descriptor is marked O_NONBLOCK and no data is waiting to be
received; or MSG_OOB is set and no out-of-band data is available and either the
socket's file descriptor is marked O_NONBLOCK or the socket does not support
blocking to await out-of-band data.
EBADF The socket argument is not a valid open file descriptor.
ECONNRESET
A connection was forcibly closed by a peer.
EINTR This function was interrupted by a signal before any data was available.
EINVAL The sum of the iov_len values overflows a ssize_t, or the MSG_OOB flag is set and
no out-of-band data is available.
EMSGSIZE
The msg_iovlen member of the msghdr structure pointed to by message is less than or
equal to 0, or is greater than {IOV_MAX}.
ENOTCONN
A receive is attempted on a connection-mode socket that is not connected.
ENOTSOCK
The socket argument does not refer to a socket.
EOPNOTSUPP
The specified flags are not supported for this socket type.
ETIMEDOUT
The connection timed out during connection establishment, or due to a transmission
timeout on active connection.
The recvmsg() function may fail if:
EIO An I/O error occurred while reading from or writing to the file system.
ENOBUFS
Insufficient resources were available in the system to perform the operation.
ENOMEM Insufficient memory was available to fulfill the request.
The following sections are informative.
EXAMPLES
None.
APPLICATION USAGE
The select() and poll() functions can be used to determine when data is available to be
received.
RATIONALE
None.
FUTURE DIRECTIONS
None.
SEE ALSO
poll(), pselect(), recv(), recvfrom(), send(), sendmsg(), sendto(), shutdown(), socket()
The Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2008, <sys_socket.h>
COPYRIGHT
Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form from IEEE Std
1003.1, 2013 Edition, Standard for Information Technology -- Portable Operating System
Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 7, Copyright (C) 2013 by the
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc and The Open Group. (This is
POSIX.1-2008 with the 2013 Technical Corrigendum 1 applied.) In the event of any
discrepancy between this version and the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard, the
original IEEE and The Open Group Standard is the referee document. The original Standard
can be obtained online at http://www.unix.org/online.html .
Any typographical or formatting errors that appear in this page are most likely to have
been introduced during the conversion of the source files to man page format. To report
such errors, see https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/reporting_bugs.html .